tuesday

I feel beat up tonight. A conversation turned twisted, and there wasn't anything I could do to prevent a melt down. I feel like I was sucker punched.

Argh. Why do I put myself through this?

Hoping I don't have another panic attack tonight. Last one was bad.

Feels like my life is just getting stable and then she says something to frustrate me and deliberately rattle my world.

fine. I'll be fine.

labor day weekend

Well, it has truly been a long time since I wrote anything. Spring and summer are the busiest months on the ranch, and fall is close behind trying to make everything ready for winter. The hay is in the barn, most of the fields are mown, and the animals are looking healthy.

And how am I, you ask? Pretty well, aside from some recently discovered medical issues which I am not trying to focus too much on. I had an accident wakeboarding. I call it my wake-up call. Since then I have lost 15lbs, and started eating better, especially at lunch. No more caffeine, severely reduced alcohol, and excercise regularly. I make blood pressure readings morning and night, trying to train my body to respond to my brain. It's slow going but I am making progress. For someone who doesn't say much, my blood pressure was saying alot. I think I hold too many things in. I probably don't deal with as many issues as I need to. I have a hard stressful job and farm life.

I want to write it off as white-coat hypertension. But when I wake up in the middle of the night with a pounding heartbeat, when I should be relaxed, I begin to wonder. Am I hypertensive? Am I so stressed out that my body is taking it out on me?

I have been practicing relaxing. I have been letting go of things I can't control, like who likes me, and whether someone will continue putting time and effort into relationship with me. It's their choice. I have been broken alot lately. But I will learn to stop looking outside for approval and start looking to God. It sounds so trite. But it's true.

be well. I hope to be soon.
B

unplugged

I'm going to try an experiment. I cancelled my twitter account, and myspace. I was spending time vicariously reading and seemingly participating in other peoples lives. The key word was seemingly, as the reality of how insignificant my participation began to sink into my brain. I long for connection. But most of my attempts end up being unilateral nudges at best. If I even get a reaction I'm lucky, let alone a response. It wasn't the daily interaction which I wished for. But perhaps my sights were too high? I don't know.

Of course that always begs the question. I should probably use my previous blog experience on this but I'm still in denial. Though there were over a thousand hits on my counter, I counted less than 10 responses.

Maybe I'm just complaining.

Being uninteresting is probably the real reason.

all for now,
B

Saturday night

Wow, what a day. It started out raining cats and dogs, and by the end we were eating ice cream with home-made chocolate sauce. It was cold and windy, but the rain stopped at noon, so I was able to spend six hours outside. In between the movie and breakfast I fit in cleaning up the shop, talking to a friend, ripping 2x6's into 2x4's for the greenhouse, raking up wet hay, repairing an air compressor hose, inflating a tire, emailing two friends, making dinner for 10, watching a friend's foot get closer to mine during a movie (wondering if she was going to rest her toes against mine), giving her a hug as she prepared to leave. And now, writing my blog.

So, what happened for your day?

All for now,
B

Another year

It has been too long, since I wrote. I stopped writing to give myself a little break. Many things have happened since then, the least of which is that I realize now that whether anyone reads this or not, I will try to continue to write. Otherwise I end up holding feelings and thoughts inside.

A milestone occurred last week. Twenty fifth anniversaries are supposed to be times of hope and joy. Joy at looking back over the years at all that has happened, and hope for the next years, that they be even more wonderful. So what does it say about me, that my friends and family were more enthusiastic about it than I was. And even more telling, nothing more than the tacit acknowledgement by my spouse that we had "endured". Hardly a comment to inspire hope and joy. And so now I know I have been endured.

I want to make the next twenty five something for the record books. Though there are significant high points, the continual low point is the realization that my primary relationship is one where my spouse endures me. I wonder how many other relationships are like that? So maybe by writing, I can see things to change.

I will try to make it interesting and exciting. I would hate for you to reach the end and think to yourself. "Well, I endured my way through that blog."

Cheers.
B

Hell of a way to start off a new year...

I should have seen it coming. But like the china-shop-bull that I am, I blundered into it blindly again.
I asked the question, hoping she'd assuage the growing dread that lurked inches below my breastbone. No, it wasn't a question about sex. It was about when the last time she felt that I intimately knew her. It wasn't a question about the biblical sense of knowing, it was supposed to be the heart-felt kind of knowing - knowing her, being connected intimately, lovingly, two hearts as it were. All through our courtship I had been convinced by her smiles and "I love you's" and "I'm so in love with you's" that I'd hardly given the question a thought until recently. It had been a simple question on a long list of questions we were to ask each other as part of "couples therapy". In my own mind I'd answered it for her while I looked back over my own answer. Did I think she felt that I knew her intimately, lately? Probably not. We had been burning the midnight oil in lengthy discussions for the last few months about our marriage, and how to improve it. But in my own blind way I was convinced that once, it had been. Long ago, back at the beginning when the two I's became an Us, I thought I had known her. Or at least I lived under the illusion of it.

So when her polite "I can't remember a time", became a "No, Never" the dread that washed over took all of my acting ability to cancel out. I felt my face instinctively tighten as the strained muscles fought over my mouth. I nodded, accepting her statement, and trying not to shake. I can deal with this, I said to myself. It's not that bad, it's only uphill from here, right? Trouble is, I can't remember the last time she ever asked me how I was other than in a superficial way. When I have tried to tell her how I was, I get the "I'm tired of you always being negative" speech, so I stop. I'm tired of concocting banal pleasant answers. My heart is broken. I feel betrayed. When she threw in the quip about letting me have sex with her because she knew I wanted it - but that for her many times it lacked intimacy and sometimes made her feel like a prostitute it was like a dagger to my soul. I'd never force myself on her like that. The very thought brings bile. But you want something happier than my woe. Happy New Year, the year of up.

Tomorrow I turn 46. I looked in the mirror today and saw tired sad eyes and a lot of gray hair stare back at me. I feel like I've invested in low interest savings. No wonder men are tempted to cheat. It is hard to be faithful when your heart is so often in shreds.

Anyway. All for now.
Cheers.

Widowmaker

One of the things you find out is that widowmakers are silent. Silent until the gravity driven object drives you to your knees and smashes your hardhat with a crack like a homerun hitting bat and rattles your world. The 20lb limb didn't look like much on the ground, but my head knew otherwise. I was minding my own business, congratulating myself on what a good job I'd done felling a decaying birch tree, when it struck me. My son stared at me aghast, helping me up off the ground where I'd been knocked to by the branch. One of my ear-muffs on my logging helmet had been dislodged by the blow, and hang dangling down like a broken off limb. It took far to long to register what had happened. The branch hadn't been there a moment ago. But then there was the loud crack and I was staring at it, dazed. Funny, but I didn't see my life flash by. I'd been just about to take my hard hat off, too, when the limb fell from the sky. I'd been caught off guard, but fortunately, I'd been smart enough to keep my hat on.

So later in the evening when the two Advil headache started, I was prepared. It was only then that I realized again how fragile life is. And how close I'd come to losing mine. Fortunately, I'd been wearing the helmet. I'll remember that next time, and make sure everyone else does too.

All for now.
B